1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic equipment, a display control method, a recording medium and a program, and particularly to electronic equipment, a display control method, a recording medium and a program which can enhance reliability of display of a battery residual amount.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are known some battery packs each of which comprises a secondary cell such as a lithium ion battery, a NiCd (nickel cadmium) battery or a nickel hydride battery and contains a microcomputer and a battery internal state detecting circuit for communication battery power information, etc. to electronic equipment having a battery pack as a power source.
In such electronic equipment, a usable battery residual amount time is calculated on the basis of battery power information achieved from a battery and displayed. When power is varied, the battery power information is re-calculated after the power thus varied is stabilized. Accordingly, it takes time from the variation of the power to the renewal of the display of the usable battery residual amount time, however, if the power consumption amount is not sharply varied, users would not feel inconvenience from a practical standpoint.
Recently, there has frequently occurred such a case that external accessory equipment is connected to electronic equipment. When an accessory terminal of electronic equipment has a power supply line, external accessory equipment connected to the electronic equipment is supplied with power from the battery of the electronic equipment.
In the conventional electronic equipment, when power being actually used is not varied, display of the usable battery residual amount time is not renewed. Accordingly, for example when a printer is connected as external accessory, a user can check the battery residual amount time before the printer is actuated, however, the user cannot check how long the battery can be used when the printer is actually operated.
When the power consumption amount of external accessory equipment is small, the display of the battery residual amount time after renewal is not so greatly varied from the battery residual amount time before the renewal. However, when accessory equipment having a large power consumption amount such as a printer, a flash or the like is connected, the display of the battery residual amount time is varied to a remarkably smaller value as compared with the value before the renewal.
In such electronic equipment, when the battery residual amount is lower than a fixed value during a predetermined operation (for example, printing operation), an alarm indicating that the operation(printing operation) cannot be executed until the end is displayed.
However, when an alarm is displayed after the printer is actually operated, a user who believes on the basis of the check of the battery residual amount time before the actuation of the printer gets into a mess because the display of the battery residual amount time before the operation of the printer which has been already checked by the user is not conformed with the actual alarm display.